Pàgines

diumenge, 16 d’octubre de 2011

Eta expected to announce definitive end to four decades of violence

Basque separatist group that has killed more than 800 people believed to be ready to make statement this week

Giles Tremlett in Madrid for The Guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 16 October 2011 21.00 BST

In a historic step for Spain, the armed Basque separatist group Eta
is this week expected to announce a definitive end to more than four
decades of violence, according to sources close to the negotiations.With
the former UN secretary general Kofi Annan flying into the Basque
country on Monday for talks and a recent call from several hundred Eta
prisoners for an end to violence, sources in the Basque country and
others involved in the process say the group will make a significant
announcement shortly.Senior members of Socialist prime minister
José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero's government have been saying for several
weeks that they expect the group to make such a move. Eta is already
observing what it terms a "permanent" ceasefire, called in September
2010, though it has broken previous unilateral truces that it had deemed
permanent.While it was unclear exactly what words Eta would use
in its forthcoming statement, it looks set to be an irreversible step
towards the end of a group that has killed more than 800 people in bomb
and pistol attacks across Spain over the past 43 years.A public
appeal from Annan and fellow mediators, including the Sinn Féin
president, Gerry Adams, for Eta to embrace peace will provide the group
with an excuse for declaring its readiness to abandon arms, according to
sources. Radical Basque separatist political leaders would then imitate
moves by Adams during the Ulster peace process when, in 2005, he
appealed directly for the IRA to lay down its weapons.Eta was
expected to react quickly, though it would stop short of announcing its
dissolution. It may follow the IRA's lead by calling on its members to
use exclusively peaceful means without disbanding. Those with experience
of Eta, however, insist that the group remains unpredictable.The
dramatic new moves would come just a month before a 20 November general
election that looks likely to change Spain's government, with the
conservative People's party (PP) of Mariano Rajoy predicted to win a
landslide victory.Although the PP has traditionally refused to
consider any sort of dialogue with Eta, it is known to have been in
contact with the group during a previous ceasefire in 1998. The hawkish
PP prime minister at the time, José María Aznar, whom Eta had tried to
kill with a car bomb in 1995, even moved some of the group's prisoners
to jails closer to home in a good-will gesture.The Basque
country's Socialist regional prime minister, Patxi López, last month
responded to a call from Eta prisoners for the group to embrace peace by
proposing that those in jails around Spain be moved to Basque prisons.Rajoy
has been careful not to comment on recent signs that Eta is looking for
a way out of the dead-end of terrorism. Indeed, he has hardly talked
about Eta – which was an obsession for his party under Aznar – over the
past four years in opposition.The PP's local leadership in the
Basque country, which has seen several of its members killed by Eta over
the years, has also become far more open to helping to finesse the
group's end.Listed as a terrorist group by the European Union and
the US, Eta has been in decline for more than a decade, with its
capacity to carry out terrorist attacks on Spanish territory seriously
weakened. But attempts to wean it off violence after it called a
ceasefire in 2006 failed, and the group planted a bomb which killed two
people at Madrid's Barajas airport.Zapatero has been wary of the
group ever since, but has been expecting a significant move from Eta
before the November election. "They will definitely do something before
the elections," a source close to the prime minister said. "But the end
may be long and will not be easy."Eta is widely regarded as an organisation that has to come to terms with its defeat by Spanish and French policing.A
decision by the group to lay down arms may provoke the appearance of
splinter groups dedicated to keeping the violence going, similar to the
Real IRA in Northern Ireland, according to a former senior Socialist
interior ministry official.Monday's talks will see peace
mediators including Tony Blair's former chief of staff, Jonathan Powell,
discuss the process with local politicians. The latter include both
radical separatists close to Eta and the Basque branch of Zapatero's
Socialist party. Rajoy's PP will not attend."If Eta and its
supporters need this in order to bring about their final end, I want to
urge them to grab this opportunity," López told journalists in New York
on Sunday.The meeting has been denounced by opponents of talks as "Eta's conference"."What
is in play is the future of our country, and knowing that we can count
on the help of important people and groups fills us with hope," said
Paul Rios, of the Lokarri peace group, which is organising the
conference.

The long road to peace

1959 Euskadi
Ta Askatasuna (Basque homeland and freedom) is founded to fight for the
independence of four northern Spanish provinces and part of south-west
France1968 First confirmed assassination, of civil guard policeman José Pardines1973 Dictator Francisco Franco's right-hand man, Admiral Luis Carrero Blanco, is assassinated1975 Franco dies1980 Most violent year: 118 killed1992 Capture in France of collective leadership marks start of decline2006 "Permanent" ceasefire ends with two killed by Madrid airport bomb2010 Fresh ceasefire called in September, then declared permanent in January 2011